The present invention relates generally to communication systems, and more particularly, to nonlinear amplifier calibration system and methods that calibrates out effects of gain and phase variations of a high power amplifier of a communication system in the presence of multicarrier traffic, while negligibly degrading the traffic.
Gain and phase variation of a high power amplifier are grossly a function of temperature and are typically calibrated out using temperature compensation circuits. It has been believed that in a system that has a large number of high power amplifiers and a processor, such as a communications system, for example, temperature compensation circuits would be more costly than a calibration system described herein.
Conventional systems using only signal power measurements require either extremely precise measurements or require adjusting the gain over a wide range of values which disturbs the traffic during calibration. In addition, prior calibration systems do not allow for gain and phase variations not a function of temperature variations (such as aging effects) to be calibrated out.
Accordingly, it is an objective of the present invention to provide for an amplifier calibration system and methods that compensates for (calibrates out) effects of gain and phase variations of high power amplifiers of a communication system in the presence of multicarrier traffic. It is a further objective of the present invention to provide for a calibration system and methods that negligibly degrades multicarrier traffic processed by a communication system while compensating for the effects of gain and phase variations of high power amplifiers of the communication system.